A new study suggests students from poorer regions around Australia are not getting into universities.

Griffith University researcher Leesa Wheelahan says students from poorer areas are applying for courses, but are not getting the marks.

The University of Canberra was rated the worst, enrolling 3.8 per cent of undergraduate students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, while Sydney's Macquarie University had just over 6 per cent.

Ms Wheelahan says the results reflect the difficulties low-income students have accessing education and the advantages enjoyed by affluent students.

"The percentage of students who enter university from low socioeconomic backgrounds hasn't changed in 15 years," she said.

"We've had equity policies in that time but we obviously haven't been doing enough.

"If governments were to set institutional targets and hold universities accountable, you would see quite a few programs put in place to ensure they improve their percentage of low socioeconomic-background students."

The report was compiled for the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education and suggested the University of Canberra (UC) had the lowest number of disadvantaged students of any campus in the country.

However UC has criticised the report, suggesting it is based on questionable methodology.

UC pro-vice chancellor Carole Kayrooz says the figures come from students' postcodes, and this is an unreliable measure of socio-economic status.

"I think the ACT is actually quite a good illustration because 70 per cent of our undergraduate domestic students are local, and the ACT is on average a high socio-economic status territory," she said.

"So most of the postcodes that we get in the ACT are really a cross section of household by socio-economic status."

Ms Kayrooz says the report's methodology is flawed.

She says research conducted by the university found a much higher rate of students from a lower socio-economic status.

"We conducted our own internal 2008 survey, and that showed that 30 per cent of our undergraduate student base held Centrelink or Health Care cards," she said.

"So even if we allow for youth allowance, we can't reconcile that 30 per cent for the University of Canberra with the 3.8 per cent low socio-economic status using the postcode methodology."

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